


If Forever Never Comes

by BillieShears



Category: Tuck Everlasting - Miller/Tysen/Shear & Federle, Tuck Everlasting - Natalie Babbitt
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:40:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22174951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BillieShears/pseuds/BillieShears
Summary: Winnie drinks. Or she doesn't. Five different ways that Winnie's life could go, depending on the decision she makes.
Relationships: Winnie Foster/Hugo Jackson, Winnie Foster/Jesse Tuck
Comments: 10
Kudos: 90





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Neko Case's "That Teenage Feeling".

The vial is heavy in Winnie’s pocket. It has been heavy in her heart for six years, but today, this morning, she had slipped it into her pocket before leaving the house. She runs her fingers along the bottle as she kisses her mother on the cheek, feels the cool glass against her palm as she thanks everyone for the well wishes on her walk to market, feels the gentle thud of it against her thigh as Hugo walks her back home. 

She blows out all the candles on her cake and hopes her smile is a convincing one. She eats two pieces, savoring the rich chocolate on her tongue, and dutifully helps to clean the kitchen. When dishes are done and her mother is knitting on the porch, in the old rocker her grandmother had always sat in, Winnie tells her she’s going for a walk in the wood. 

Her mother purses her lips, disapproval written all over her face, but she merely nods. Winnie hasn’t stepped a toe out of line since The Trouble all those years ago - that was how her mother referred to it, _The Trouble_ , refusing to discuss it further than that. Winnie has been kind and patient and obedient, has never made her mother worry again, not since those awful days. And after all, it is her birthday. Even her mother can’t deny her this small thing. 

In the wood, Winnie climbs a tree, and rolls the vial in her palm absently. When she closes her eyes, she can see the future stretched out before her. Everyone in town knows that Hugo Jackson has been trying, in his own way, to court her. He’s a sweet man, and Winnie knows he would give her a good life, albeit a simple one, in Treegap. He’s the type of man who would make her mother proud, who would never ask too much of her, who would be a good father if they were to have children. They would grow old together, and perhaps they’d have adventures, but none like the kind she would have with - 

Well. 

Even so, perhaps they would have adventures of their own.

Winnie twists her fingers around the vial, and she thinks about the Tucks. She thinks of Mae, showing her what a mother’s love should feel like. She thinks of fishing with Angus, of all their long conversations, the way he always spoke to her as an equal, never as a simply a child who didn’t know better. She thinks of Miles, fiercely protective of his family, filled with anger and resentment toward the spring and for everything that he had lost - yet still so gentle with Winnie. She thinks of Jesse, so adventurous and loving and _lonely_. She had recognized that in him - she knew what it was like, to feel so very alone. 

She doesn’t have to wonder how they would feel about her choice, whichever she makes. Each of them had made that very clear, those six years ago. 

Winnie thinks of her mother, how they’ve never had a _real_ conversation, not in any meaningful way. She never seemed interested in what Winnie had to say. She thinks of the people of Treegap, nothing more than acquaintances at best, and how very isolated and small her life has been. She thinks very hard of the last time she felt truly happy over the six years since the Tucks had gone, and comes up empty. 

If she drinks the water, Winnie knows she is closing a door. People won’t notice right away, of course, but her time in Treegap will have to come to an end eventually. She’ll have to keep to herself most of the time - she won’t be able to plant roots anywhere, won’t be able to forge new friendships. She doesn’t even know where the Tucks _are_ , when or how they’ll find each other. If she drinks the water, Winnie will be saying goodbye to everything about the life she’s always known.

If she drinks the water, Winnie knows she is opening herself up to a thousand _more_ doors. Her time in Treegap was always going to end, it was never Winnie’s plan to stay. She’s always wanted to travel, to explore, to see the world. She knows she’ll find the Tucks, or they’ll find her. When the time comes for her to leave Treegap, she’ll leave word for them in the wood, in case they come back for her. She’ll travel to places that Jesse has told her stories about, she’ll search every corner of the world if she has to. One way or another, their paths will cross again. 

The sun has started to set, and Winnie knows it is time to go. If she’s not home before dark, her mother will have half the town out looking for her. The time to make her decision has come. 

With one last sweeping glance around the wood, Winnie uncorks the bottle, and she seals her future.


	2. Two

In the hours just past midnight on her eighteenth birthday, there is a tap at her window - the tell tale sign of a pebble hitting the glass. Winnie knows, before even looking, who it is. She races downstairs, slipping quietly out of the house, and runs headlong into his arms. 

“Jesse!” She whispers. He spins her in a circle before setting her down. 

“Stand back and let me get a good look at you,” He says, and she dutifully steps away. Her heart is beating wildly in her chest, she’s smiling so hard her cheeks hurt. She’s breathless with happiness that comes over her in waves. She’s not even embarrassed to be in her nightgown - this is _Jesse_. Not a dream, not a wild hope, _Jesse_. He, of course, looks exactly the same - every hair on his head, exactly the same. Forever.

She can see the charismatic, playful look slip from Jesse’s face, just a little, as he looks her over. Winnie realizes that she must look so _different_ to him - he can probably barely recognize her. He hasn’t seen her since she was eleven, after all. She wonders if he’s ever imagined what she’d look like now, how she’d changed, or if he still thought of her as the child she was when he left.

“You wouldn’t know me if I walked past you on the street,” She accuses, trying to keep her voice light. He shakes his head, stares right into her eyes. 

“I would know you anywhere, Winnie Foster.” She feels her cheeks flush, and she suddenly feels shy. 

“Still want to marry me?” She teases, bumping her shoulder up against his.

“Are you proposing?” He grins, and there it is - some of the mirth is returning to him. He nudges her, then takes her by the arm: “come on, let’s go to the spring. Back where it all started!”

She glances back at her house, checking to see that it’s still dark. No sound comes from it - the night is quiet, only the soft sounds of nature fill the air. 

“I’ve got to be back before sunrise,” She warns, and Winnie lets herself be led.

-

They go to the spring, and Jesse traces his fingers along the T carved into the tree. She wishes they could go further into the wood, all the way to the Tucks’ cottage, but she’d never make it back in time before her mother woke up. She thinks maybe that’s for the best. She’d probably never leave, if she went back. 

She can feel Jesse’s eyes on her, and her throat tightens. She’d been so happy to see him - she’s still happy - but just knowing it’ll all be over soon, that he’ll be gone again and she’ll be alone, it’s too much. She suddenly feels like crying. She wants to stop time forever and realizes, not for the first time, that she _can._

“Winnie?” Jesse asks, voice soft. 

“I didn’t drink it.” It spills out of her, the information she knows he’s really come here for. Jesse stills, frozen, waiting for her to explain. “I didn’t decide _not_ to, exactly, I just… haven’t decided at all.”

“ _Do_ you want to?” He asks. “There’s still time. Eighteen’s not so different from seventeen. Not when you’ve lived forever, anyhow.”

“I still don’t know,” Winnie admits. Jesse nods slowly, like he’s mulling it over. 

“Seems like the kind of thing you’d want to know for sure,” He says, finally. “Can’t really undo it, once it’s been done.”

“It’s not that I don’t miss you all,” Winnie reassures him, “I miss you all, all the time. Not a day goes by where I’m not thinking of you. Your family… you changed my life.” 

“We miss you, too,” Jesse says, “all the time.”

“I wish I could talk to Tuck,” she confesses. Jesse nods, letting out a long sigh.

“I think,” He starts, and Winnie can tell that it’s painful for him to admit, “that if Tuck were here... he’d say that no decision _is_ a decision.” Winnie feels guilt bubble up in her chest, huge and heavy like a stone, but when Jesse looks at her, he doesn’t seem angry, or even disappointed. He looks like he maybe already knew this was coming. “If you really wanted to drink it…”

A sob catches in her throat. He’s right, and they both know it. If her decision was forever - if she had chosen the Tucks - she wouldn’t have waited, not one second longer than she needed to.

“Don’t cry, Winnie,” Jesse tries to smile, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and that makes it so much worse. He swipes a thumb under her eye, brushing her tears away. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

-

They stop at the edge of the wood without discussing it. Winnie knows he won’t come any further than this, and she won’t ask him to. Instead, she reaches for his hand, holds it tight in her own, and wishes there could be another way. 

“Will you tell them that I love them?” She asks, feeling like she’s losing them all over again. “Tell them everything I said.”

“Of course I will.”

“Okay,” Winnie squares her shoulders and takes a deep breath. “I’m ready.”

She takes the bottle from the pocket of her nightgown and eases the cork off. Jesse lays his hand over hers, and together, they dump the water into the grass.

“Happy birthday, Winnie Foster,” Jesse murmurs, when the bottle is emptied and Winnie has begun to breathe again. He presses a kiss to her forehead and squeezes her hand once before letting her go. “Here’s to many more.”


	3. Three

Winnie turns seventeen, then eighteen, then twenty. As each birthday passes, a voice in her head thrums: _it’s not too late_. She could still drink, still become eternal. She keeps the bottle in her memory box, where she has a photo of her father, some trinkets from childhood, a handful of mementos from the Tucks. She takes it out every birthday, and ponders her choice. 

She thinks of Jesse, forever seventeen, then thinks of herself at seventeen, and can’t believe how much younger she felt then. Jesse had seemed so incredibly _old_ , when she was eleven. So worldly, so wise beyond his years. These days, when she passes the school yard or goes into town and sees seventeen year olds, her first thought is: _they’re still just children._ Is that what she would think, if she saw Jesse again? Would she be startled, at how boyish he seemed? 

Winnie presses a kiss to the bottle, says a prayer for the Tucks, and stashes it away for another year.

-

She turns twenty-four, and gets married. People around Treegap had whispered that she’d never marry, that she’d grow to be an old maid, that poor Hugo Jackson wouldn’t wait forever for her. When Hugo had proposed, the year she turned twenty-one, the year her mother had died, Winnie hadn’t said no - she’d said _not yet._ She wanted to see more of the world. She sold her family home (but not the wood - never the wood), she packed up and left Treegap, she spent years travelling. There was a piece of her that always wondered if she’d see Jesse in her travels, if she’d find him at the top of the Eiffel Tower, but she never did. 

She writes Hugo letters, and he writes her back, and _this_ is how she falls in love with him. He writes so lovingly of Treegap, and sometimes it makes her heart ache for home. Whenever she sees a new place, though, she wonders how she could ever go back. _How could I ever miss all of this?_ She wonders. She writes to Hugo, explaining as best she can about her adventures. She writes to Jesse, letters that she has no way of sending. 

Two months before her twenty-fourth birthday, she is leaving her hotel in London for the day, and there is Hugo, red-faced and flustered as he talks to the concierge. She’s caught off-guard by the rush of happiness that fills her up, and when he turns to see her, his smile splits his face wide open. 

She takes him everywhere, they both stumble over each other’s sentences, no longer confined to letters on a page. They spend the day sight-seeing, and in the evening, they sit in a quiet corner of a pub, and Hugo proposes again. 

“It doesn’t have to be all or nothing,” He says quickly, “it doesn’t have to be Treegap or here. We could do both, Winnie - we could travel, every year we could, and if we have children, we could bring them along, too -”

“Are we having children, Hugo?” Winnie teases, and Hugo flushes pink all the way up to his ears, and it makes Winnie’s heart ache with fondness. 

“What I mean to say,” Hugo says, voice softening, “is that I would like to be wherever you are, Winnie Foster.”

Winnie lays her hand on top of Hugo’s, and for a long while, she’s quiet. It occurs to her that, for the first time in a long time, the Tucks haven’t been swimming in the back of her mind.

“I think,” she says, finally, “that I would like to go home.”

-

Winnie turns thirty, with two young children and a husband to show for it, and photo albums bursting with pictures from family vacations. Winnie can’t believe her own life, sometimes - she thinks back to a childhood of being trapped in her home, thinks of being a teenager debating whether or not to drink from the bottle - and she’s overcome with gratitude for where she is now. She never imagined her life could be like this. She didn’t know, when she was eleven - how could she have possibly understood what the Tucks were trying to tell her, about growing older? She misses them, still - every birthday, she takes out her memory box and thinks of them, and hopes they are well. She grieves them more than she grieves her own mother, she sometimes thinks, an ache deep inside of her - but she never regrets the choice she made. She didn’t know, when she was eleven, what a gift it was to grow. 

-

Winnie turns thirty-six, and when there’s a knock at the door, she almost doesn’t believe it when she steps onto the porch and it’s Miles who greets her. 

She bursts into tears when he hugs her, twenty-five years of emotions bubbling up and pouring out of her. She can’t believe how young he looks - it hadn’t occurred to her, not really, that she was so much older than him now. Hugo has brought their daughters to work with him that day, so there’s no one for Winnie to tell when she and Miles go for a walk in the wood. 

He doesn’t have to tell her how happy he is to see that she’s aged - it’s written all over his face, as clear as day. She’d grabbed her memory box from her closet before they’d set off for the wood, and she watched as his eyes filled with tears while he thumbed through the pictures of her daughters.

When the sun begins to set and Winnie knows Hugo and the girls will be wondering where she is, she and Miles start to say their goodbyes. She gives him a stack of letters, wrapped with twine, ones she’d written through the years - most to Jesse, but some to Miles, Mae, and Angus, too. He pockets it, and she takes his hand and presses the bottle to it, closing his fingers around it. 

“I don’t need it,” she says, “will you give it back to him? Please?”

“We should dump it,” Miles says, face set, but Winnie shakes her head. 

“Let it be his choice,” She says, “I’ve made mine. Please, Miles.”

Miles is reluctant, but he nods, and pockets the vial. He walks Winnie as far as the edge of the wood, and she gives him a final hug. There are no promises to stay in touch, no talk of future visits, and when Winnie walks away, she knows she will never see Miles, or any of the Tucks, again.


	4. Four

In the weeks after the Tucks, when they’ve long gone and Winnie thinks things have finally begun to settle, her mother talks of selling the wood - or worse, cutting it down. 

“Those awful people can’t hide there if it doesn’t exist,” She sniffs. 

“Mother, no!” Winnie cries, “You can’t! _Please_ \- there’s no danger anymore, they’re gone, they’re never coming back -” what she doesn’t say is: _no matter how much I want them to._

“We’re getting rid of those awful woods, Winnie, and that is final,” Her mother snaps, “I don’t want a constant reminder of what happened to you.”

 _What happened to me,_ Winnie thinks, _is that I realized what it meant to be happy and free._

Winnie cries, she screams, she begs and she pleads, promises her mother “anything, anything, I’ll do anything in the world, just please, _let the wood be_ ”. She can’t have the last traces of the Tucks disappear, and moreover, she can’t let anyone stumble upon the spring. She had promised to keep the secret. Her mother purses her lips and says they’ll talk about it later, when Winnie is prepared to act her age and not like a spoiled toddler. Winnie thinks about the vial of spring water in her top dresser drawer, wishing she was seventeen already, and slams the door on her way out of the house. 

(She doesn’t go very far - just sits on the far edge of the lawn and fumes. She’s furious with her mother, but she isn’t looking to terrify her all over again. She isn’t looking to run away, this time. What’s the point, with no Tucks to run to?)

The next morning, her mother talks at length about the merits of various finishing schools throughout New England. Winnie listens with narrowed eyes, letting her tea grow cold as her mother talks about what it means to be a fine young lady, all the skills that Winnie would learn there. It sounds like a nightmare. The “no” is hot on Winnie’s tongue when her mother gives the ultimatum: either Winnie goes, or the Woods do. 

-

Winnie has been at finishing school for six months when it happens. She is in her bedroom, the one she shares with a girl named Susannah, sitting at her desk and staring, as she often did, at the vial Jesse had given her. Seventeen is such a long way away, and she still doesn’t know whether or not she’ll drink, but even so, she likes to think of the future, likes to imagine what it could be like. Here, at this awful place, remembering her time with the Tucks is the only thing that brings her any great happiness. She pops the cork on and off of the bottle absently, drumming her fingers on the desktop. She wonders what her mother would think if she knew - that in trying to get Winnie as far away from the Tucks are possible, she was only pushing her closer to them. She would run away all over again, if she only knew where to find them. She would drink and drink and drink the water, if only she were seventeen.

The door bursts open and Susannah rushes in, face flushed and happy, and Winnie nearly jumps a mile. 

“Winnie! You missed my tennis match - you should have seen me, I was really something,” She says, pleased with herself, “I’m exhausted, though, it was so hot - here, let me have a sip of that.” She reaches for the bottle, easily slipping it from Winnie’s grasp, and Winnie immediately panics. 

“No!” She cries, and in reaching it back, she knocks it clean out of Susannah’s hands and it falls to the floor, shattering and immediately soaking into the carpet. “Oh, _no!_ Oh, look what’s happened!” She feels tears stinging at her eyes, feels Susannah’s stunned stare boring holes into her. 

“I only wanted a sip,” Susannah huffs, indignant, “honestly, it’s no big deal, Winnie.”

Winnie bends to pick up the pieces and tries to convince herself that Susannah is right - that it’s no big deal. _I’ll go to the spring and get more when I go home,_ she tells herself, _it’s years before I’m seventeen._

-

Winnie doesn’t come back to Treegap for two years. She’s wanted to, desperately, but her Mother kept coming up with reasons why she couldn’t. _Your grandmother and I will come spend Christmas with you,_ her mother had said, then: _Oh no, Winnie, why come to old Treegap for your summer holidays? Grandmother and I will come to you, we’ll get a place by the beach for the summer, it’ll be lovely._ But now, Winnie’s grandmother is sick, and asking to see Winnie before she gets any sicker. So Winnie boards a train, and her thirteen year old heart grows lighter and lighter the closer she gets to home. Maybe she’ll even be able to convince her mother to let her stay - surely it’s been long enough, now. Surely now her mother will be rational. 

When she gets to Treegap, however, all of Winnie’s hopes come crashing down around her.

“What have you done to my wood?!” She shouts, storming into the house, “oh, you’ve _ruined_ it!”

“Winnie, be _sensible_ ,” Her mother rolls her eyes heavenward, “they’re hardly _ruined_. It’s only a couple of trees cut down.”

“A couple of trees?” Winnie is aghast. The woods are so sparse, now, she can practically see for miles. She can hardly call it _woods_ at all. “You promised, you swore to me that if I did what you said and I went away to that terrible school that you would leave it alone! You promised!”

“Winnifred Foster,” Her mother says tightly, “lower your voice this instant. Your grandmother is trying to rest. Or have you forgotten the reason you’re home at all? You’re acting like a child.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Winnie snaps, “considering you never let me _be_ a child.” 

“Go sit with your grandmother,” her mother orders, rubbing at her temples, “and not another word about that wood tonight, do you hear me?”

Winnie does as she is told, though she’s nearly crawling out of her skin with the need to go to the wood and investigate. _Anyone_ could stumble on the spring now, with half the trees gone. She holds her grandmother’s hand and half-heartedly tells stories about school. She peaks out the bedroom door, checking to see if her mother is nearby, and dares to ask the question:

“What happened to the wood?” She keeps her voice low - if her mother hears her, there will be hell to pay, Winnie knows. 

“Oh, that,” Her grandmother says blandly, “there was a storm, and lightning struck one of the trees. It caused a fire, and the whole area had to be cleared out. After that, your mother decided the job was half done already, and had them clear out some more. They’ll be paving a road through it come springtime.”

Winnie could swear she feels her heart stop. Her mouth goes dry. She feels dizzy, suddenly. 

“I need to rest now, child,” her grandmother tells her, “go and sit with your mother awhile.”

Winnie walks out of her grandmother’s bedroom and keeps walking, ignoring her mother’s demands for help in the kitchen. She walks out of the house, out of the yard, pace quickening with every step until she’s running, full sprint, into what is left of the wood. 

-

The spring is gone. 

Winnie has circled the area three times, refusing to believe it, but the spring is gone. The tree, too. Any trace of the Tucks, gone forever. 

Winnie’s one remaining chance at eternity has slipped through her fingers, removing the choice entirely. She drops to her knees, sobbing, digging frantically in the dirt as though she could find the spring just under the surface, but all she has to show for it is muddy hands and muddy knees. She cries and cries and cries until there’s nothing left inside of her, sometimes Winnie thinks she’s cried so much in the years since the Tucks that she’ll dry right up. It wasn’t that she had decided for sure that she was going to drink the water someday, it’s that now she _can’t_. It isn’t up to her anymore. The choice has been made for her, and Winnie knows life isn’t fair, life has proven it isn’t fair over and over and over again, but this just _isn’t fair_. She lost the Tucks once already - losing the spring feels like losing them all over again. 

Winnie doesn’t go home until the sun has long since set. Her mother is sitting on the porch when she returns, and though she looks visibly relieved at the sight of her daughter coming home in one piece, she doesn’t say a word to her. She turns and goes back into the house, slamming the door behind her. By the time Winnie comes inside, her mother has already locked herself away and her grandmother is soundly sleeping. Winnie goes to the bathroom and slips out of her now-muddied clothes, fills the tub, and sinks into it, eyes red and raw and emptied of tears.

She closes her eyes, and she knows this much is true: she will go back to finishing school if that is what her mother demands of her, but she will never come home to Treegap again.


	5. Five

Winnie drinks on her seventeenth birthday, and lets two more birthdays pass before she decides it’s best to leave Treegap. No one has noticed anything different about her, not yet, and she suspects they might not for quite some time, but even so - best to be cautious, when dealing in forevers. 

Her next two birthdays after that are spent travelling - four years since she drank, and she hasn’t seen nor heard a word from any of the Tucks. Winnie isn’t worried. She’s happy travelling, she sends letters and trinkets home to her mother and tries not to feel too guilty every time she gives a reason for why she's not coming home. 

In her fifth year of immortality, Winnie is wandering a market in West Virginia when she sees Mae Tuck, unmistakable as she picks over the potatoes. 

“Mae!” Winnie cries, and rushes for her. Mae looks up, startled, and Winnie can see the fear on her face - she must be afraid that she’s been caught, that it’s the Man in the Yellow Suit all over again. The man may be long dead now, but his specter is never far from Winnie’s mind, and she thinks it must not be far from Mae’s, either. “Mae, it’s me, it’s Winnie!” 

“Winnie?” Mae repeats, disbelieving, and Winnie pulls her in for a hug. “Oh,Winnie, oh my dear girl! Is it really you?” She pulls away to get a better look, cups Winnie’s face in her hands. Her eyes are shining with tears. “Oh, Winnie, we thought we’d never see you again. Look at you! You’ve grown so much.”

“Speaking of growing -”

“Come,” Mae interrupts, glancing around to see if anyone’s paying attention, “come back to the house, we’ll spend the afternoon together. Do you have time?”

“All the time in the world,” Winnie tells her, and Mae’s eyes widen with recognition. She takes Winnie by the arm and steers her away, through the bustling streets.

-

Winnie sits on the sofa while Mae fumbles with the kettle on the stove, filling up a tray with snacks and cups of tea. The house is so similar to the one in Treegap in so many ways, the memories filling Winnie all the way up. For a moment she feels as though she’s still a child, stumbling upon the Tucks secret - _their_ secret, now. Something they share. 

“How long?” Mae asks, but before Winnie can answer, the front door opens and in comes Angus Tuck, fishing pole slung over his shoulder, the days catch in his hands, just exactly as she remembers him - of course exactly as she remembers him. He knows her right away, she can see it on his face - the shock, the initial happiness, then the slow understanding, the realization as his smile slips away. 

“You drank it.” It is not a question. Mae winds up her music box, the familiar melody filling the cottage. 

“I did,” Winnie says, “five years ago.”

There is a long, heavy silence that follows. Angus and Winnie, staring at one another, Mae off to the side, cranking the handle of the music box over and over and over again, gaze flickering between them. The kettle is boiling, but no one is moving.

“Can I…” Winnie’s voice comes out softer than she was expecting. She clears her throat, tries again. “Can I stay? Here, with you?”

“Of course you can,” Mae is quick to respond, “oh, Winnie, you don’t even have to ask. Of course you can stay with us.”

“Tuck?” She asks, looking at him pointedly, “can I stay?”

Then Angus is crossing the room, three swift steps as he drops his things to the floor, and he hugs her, tight as anything. She hugs him back and hears someone crying and realizes: it’s her. She feels Mae’s hand on her back, rubbing slow soothing circles, and Winnie knows - Winnie has never doubted - that she made the right choice. 

-

For the next year, it’s the three of them, Winnie and Mae and Angus. Mae doesn’t know where to send a letter to reach the boys, but they always turn up one way or another, and none of them are in any rush. Winnie goes fishing with Angus, does the cooking with Mae, wanders into the city every now and again to do the shopping. She loves her life like this - wild and free and _happy_ , loves sitting on the porch and watching the fireflies, loves the feeling of having a family - a real and true family who love her, who wouldn’t change a thing about her. She’d forgotten, or maybe she’d never really known, what it was like to have a mother and father who loved her so unconditionally, so wholly. Sometimes she lays on the couch with her head in Mae’s lap and falls asleep like that, Mae winding her music box and talking to her in hushed tones while Tuck snores quietly in his chair nearby, and Winnie can’t imagine a better life than this.

-

Miles is the first to come home, a few months later. Winnie is at the market when he arrives, so by the time she’s back at the cottage, Miles already knows everything. She’s nearly reached the front porch when Miles storms out, slamming the door so hard the walls rattle, and just for a moment, they lock eyes. 

“Miles -” she starts, but he walks past her without a word. 

“Winnie,” Mae is standing in the doorway, voice gentle, “don’t mind him. He’ll come around in time.”

But Winnie can’t help it, can’t leave it alone. She turns on her heel and follows him, running to catch up, laying a hand on his arm. 

“Miles, just talk to me,” she implores, “if it would help to yell at me, then do that, but don’t just _ignore_ me.”

Miles jerks his arm away from her, takes a few more steps, then whirls around. 

“I _told_ you not to,” He snaps, “we _all_ told you, we all _warned_ you. But you would only hear Jesse. I can’t believe - why would you _choose_ this? Think of everything you’re giving up. Everything you’ve lost.”

“I haven’t _lost_ anything -”

“You’ve lost _everything,_ Winnie!” He cries, “All of it! The chance to grow old, to have a family of your own -”

“ _I_ _have a family!_ ” Winnie shouts. “Mae and Tuck, _they’re_ my family. Jesse will be my family. I don’t understand why you have to be so _mean_ -”

“You don’t get it,” Miles says, “you have no idea yet, how much you’ve lost already. How much we lost, how much _I_ lost.”

“But look at everything you _have_ , Miles,” Winnie pleads, “you and Mae and Tuck and Jesse, you have each other and you love each other so much - how could I not want to be a part of that? How could I want anything else in this life?”

Miles doesn’t say anything, but she can see him softening around the edges, ever so slightly. 

“Besides,” she finally says, “what’s done is done, Miles. You’re the one who always says you can’t go back. We’re with each other forever, now, do you really want to spend that whole time hating me?”

“I don’t _hate_ you, Winnie,” Miles says, and he doesn’t sound upset anymore, he just sounds tired. “Don’t ever think that.”

“Well, good,” Winnie gives a tentative smile, and Miles lets her loop her arm through his, leading him back towards the cottage, “because if you aren’t too angry, I’d like for _you_ to be my family, too.”

-

Three more months pass, and Miles has decided to stick around, at least for a little while. Winnie knows he’ll never understand why she drank from the spring, but he comes around eventually to the idea that it was her choice, that it’s too late to change it, and he respects that much, at least. He’d bought a mandolin during his most recent travels, and in the evenings, he and Winnie try to teach themselves how to play. Any time it’s his turn to go into town and do the shopping, he comes home with books for her, books on all kinds of things, and they’ll pore over them together - Miles is a wonderful teacher. 

A letter from Jesse arrives in the spring, with promises to return by the end of April, but they have no address to write back to, so there’s no way to tell him about Winnie, about everything that’s happened. That’s just as well, Winnie admits to Mae as they stroll through the fields idly picking flowers one afternoon - she liked the idea of surprising him, anyhow. 

When he finally does come home it’s halfway through May - _typical Jesse,_ Miles grunts, _always getting sidetracked._ Winnie is at the kitchen sink when she spots him out the window, and she calls out to the others before ducking into the next room, hiding herself away. Mae rushes out to greet him, Angus and Miles waiting on the porch. There are hugs and hellos and a few tears from Mae, and hearing laughter from the four of them is like music to Winnie’s ears. 

“Oh, and Jesse,” she hears Mae say, “there’s something we ought to tell you.”

“We woulda told you sooner,” Angus says, “if you’d ever give us an address.”

“The world is my address, Tuck,” Jesse says grandly, and Winnie imagines it’s accompanied by a sweeping gesture, “I can’t be confined by an address.”

“Typical Jesse,” Miles repeats, and Winnie giggles softly.

“So what’s the news?” She hears the thud of Jesse dropping his bag onto the porch. “You’re not moving again so soon, are you?”

Winnie figures this is as good a time as any. She comes to stand in the doorway, smile stretched across her face. Jesse’s back is to her, and even though she hasn’t seen his face yet, it’s enough to make her feel like she’s about to burst. 

“Hello, stranger,” she says, and she sees Jesse go still. He turns slowly, so achingly slowly that Winnie wants to reach out and spin him around herself, and when his eyes lock with hers, it sends shivers down her arms. 

“Winnie?” A slow smile spreads across his face, then he’s scooping her up in his arms and spinning her in a circle. They’re both laughing, like their happiness can’t be contained, like it’s got to come out or they’ll explode. He takes her by the shoulders and steps back to look at her, then pulls her back in for another hug. “Winnie, I can’t believe - how long have you - when did you -”

“Well, this is about all the fun I can take,” Miles says, clapping Jesse on the back. “I’m going out on the lake. Welcome home, Jesse.”

“I’ll join you,” Angus says, and follows him off the porch. He gives Mae a meaningful look before he goes.

“I’d better see about those dishes,” She says quickly, giving Jesse a kiss on the cheek before she rushes inside.

“Come sit,” Winnie takes him by the hand and leads him to the porch swing, “and I’ll fill you in on everything that you’ve missed.” 

-

Every day, Winnie is grateful for the choice she made. She remembers what Tuck told her all those years ago, when she was only a child - _you can’t call this living, what we’ve got -_ but even now, she can’t think of anything she’d rather have, anything she’d want more than she wants this. Her life is not absent of sadness, of course - there are days when she thinks of her mother and father and grandmother, thinks of Treegap and her past - but her life is also filled with so much joy, so much love. Winnie can’t go back, and she has never wanted to. _If this isn’t living,_ Winnie thinks, _it’s something even better_.

In early August of that year, Winnie decides that she’s ready for another adventure. She doesn’t want to stray for too long, not this time, but she’s starting to get that familiar itch, the need for something new, something different. She goes outside and finds Jesse, drifting to sleep in a hammock he’d hung up earlier that summer. 

“Jesse,” she whispers in sing-song, “Jesse, wake up.”

He mumbles something she can’t quite understand, and tries to roll away from her. 

“Jesse, wake up,” she says, forcefully this time, and she gives the hammock a mighty push. “It's time to have an adventure.” 

Finally, Jesse sits up, planting one leg firmly on the ground to steady the hammock. 

“I’m up, I’m up,” He yawns, “where’s the fire?”

“I’m ready for an adventure!” She declares, excited and impatient, “Are you with me or not?”

Jesse grins and climbs out of the hammock.

“I’m with you,” he says, and he takes her by the hands. “I’m with you forever, Winnie Foster.”


End file.
